From Seattle: 32 arrested in police raid against Occupy Seattle
From our Climate SOS colleague Duff Badgley in Seattle: For four nights in the gloom and rain we have occupied Westlake Park, the highly used public park in Seattle’s commercial core. Occupy Seattle, like Occupy Wall Street, sprang into being outside other organizations. The speed and intensity of our birthing has been magical for an […]
“Why Greece Is About To Explode”
From The New Significance, an excellent new webzine on global rebellions from former ZNet co-editor Chris Spannos. He is just back from visiting and interviewing activists across Europe, and promises continuing coverage from on the ground there, as well as in New York and elsewhere: The author of this report from Greece is Jérôme E. […]
Updates and more views of Occupy Wall Street
The Occupy Wall Street campaign, now in its third week, has inspired a wide range of commentaries, as well as like-minded events all across the US. Here are two somewhat contrasting views from commentators I trust. Arun Gupta of New York City’s Indypendent newspaper offers a positive outlook on this emerging movement’s potential to confront […]
“Occupy Wall Street” & the Radical Imagination
A thoughtful commentary by anthropologist and social movements scholar David Graeber in The Guardian of September 25th. One good source of daily updates is the Reader Supported News website at readersupportednews.org. An excerpt: The form of resistance that has emerged looks remarkably similar to the old global justice movement: we see the rejection of old-fashioned […]
Neoliberalism, Austerity & Participatory Democracy
Norwegian social ecologist Sveinung Legard has drawn our attention to his recent article on the New Compass website. In this piece, he aims to address some of the arguments raised in this blog last spring by writers who questioned whether it is still meaningful to raise demands for direct democracy in a period of neoliberal […]
New webzine highlights global rebellions
The New Significance, edited by former ZNet co-editor Chris Spannos, is described as “A web magazine exploring revolutionary forces for change & autonomy in the 21st Century…” They offer both daily and weekly email newsletters highlighting important current developments. This week’s headlines include: Thousands In Chile Take To Streets, Demand Change A Deconstruction […]
Mass protests and assemblies in Israel
ISE alum Rob Augman reports: On Saturday, August 6th, roughly 350,000 people (5% of the population) took part in mass protests calling for social justice, the largest protest in the country’s history. Like the recent Arab Spring protests and the European protests against austerity measures, what’s being called the “Israeli Summer” began on July 14th, […]
Brian Tokar reviews “Loisaida”
“Coming of Age in a Different Time,” by Brian Tokar Excerpt: Loisaida [is] a compelling coming-of-age story that describes one young woman’s journey of self-discovery and political awakening. Purple-haired Catherine … escaped a liberal but far too safe enclave in Scarsdale to live with her lover in a Lower East Side squat and work on […]
Popular Assemblies in Revolts and Revolutions
A new article by Norwegian social ecologist Sveinung Legard offers a thoughtful historical assessment of the re-emergence of popular assemblies in Europe this spring and summer: “These assemblies derive not only from the initiative of their protagonists but also from the history of the major revolutions in Europe from the 18th to the 20th century […]
Nationwide strike and state repression in Britain
Written the day before the June 30th general strike, this article examines the rising repression against protests in the UK, the historical mindset that makes it possible, and how people are continuing to resist. British unions were predicting a walkout of as many as 750,000 people to protest budget cuts and drastic changes in the public pension system […]
